My Roommate's a Guy?
by blackeningmidnight
Summary: What if Cath's roommate had been Levi, like she'd thought on the first day? These characters belong to Rainbow Rowell.
1. Chapter 1

AU: Levi is actually Caths Roommate.

Finally reaching the room I was looking for 913 I sigh with relief, my whole body relaxing at finding my destination, quickly returning to it's rigid stressed form at the idea of meeting my roommate. What if they really were some psychopath? I can't believe Wren is so okay with us living in separate dorms, this is so wrong.

The door to the room was propped open, which can only be a good thing considering the size of the box in my hand. I'm shocked to find a boy in my room. I look at the number again, it definitely says 913, and I'm pretty sure this is Pound Hall. They don't room guys and girls together do they? They certainly shouldn't do that without giving the person due warning.

"You must be Cather?" the boy says, his grin wide as he holds out his hand, how does he expect me to shake his hand or whatever when I am carrying this box.

"Cath." I mumble, a lump in my throat, this is not what I thought it would be it's worse. I don't want to be here. Maybe I should catch Dad before he brings more boxes upstairs, I don't want to stay here, this was a mistake. What was I thinking? I knew I was moving into a co-ed dorm but a co-ed room?

The boy takes the box from my hands, clearly assuming that that is the reason for my unease, he sets it down on the empty bed. Half the room already set up and looking like it's always been that way.

"I'm Levi, by the way." He says, smiling consistently, he doesn't mention anything about being my roommate and I'm still hoping that my actual roommate is hiding in the closet somewhere or even is coming back upstairs with some more stuff. "You do have more stuff than that right?" I nod, too stuck in my own head to make some coherent reply that incorporates words.

"Right, okay. I think we're going to go get a burger now. I'm starving. Have you been to Pears already?" I shake my head and he continues "The burgers are like the best thing in the world – size of your fist." He picks up my arm, closing his fingers around my hand till I'm making a fist, serving to illustrate his point. "Bigger." He states. "Bigger than your fist." He takes a step backwards, to sit on the bed on the other side of the room, pulling on a pair of shoes. He was tall, taller than Abel and thin. His tan and his dark blonde hair flopping in all directions, suggesting he's spent a lot of time outside over the summer, probably the beach or something like that.

I look down at the piece of paper with my room assignment on, checking it again for some clarity. Her room assignment hadn't given her a name, like she'd expected, like Wren's had. She'd thought that maybe she wasn't getting given a roommate, but that had been wishful thinking.

"Reagan!" the boys says happily jumping to his feet. "This is my roommate, Cather." A girl steps around me and glances back towards me coolly looking like she really couldn't care less. She's the sort of girl that I'd avoid in normal conditions (probably shown most obviously by the unlit cigarette hanging from her mouth) and now she was in my room, and I'd just been introduced as Levi's roommate which means that this whole situation is true and remarkable messed up. Who knew co-ed rooms even existed?

"Cath." I finally correct, she stares at me blankly. "My name is Cath, not Cather." Reagan nodded and fished in her purse for something, only to pull out another cigarette, I hold my breathe and pray she doesn't hand it to Levi, I can't deal with a roommate who smokes, even if I don't plan to stay for much longer, this was a mistake.

She glances round the whole room, taking in Levi's decorating and my lack thereof before turning to Levi. "Ready?" He turns to me.

"So you coming?" I shake my head. The door shuts behind them and I sigh a breathe of relief at being alone.

My body feels heavy and I have to sit down, my nerves are shot. I rest my head against the cinder block wall. My heart feels like it is in the throat and the butterflies in my stomach dance around and I have to take numerous deep breaths before it returns to normal. I grasp for a sense of normalcy, desperate to have a hold of myself before Dad and Wren make it upstairs to my room. Seeing me in melt down would only send her Dad into meltdown and upset Wren who would assume that it was as revenge for not living with her. It would only ruin Wrens perfect first day and I won't let her hold that over my head for the rest of my life.

Wren was the one who had insisted that they live separately in their first year, it is the perfect opportunity to meet new people apparently, according to Wren. I'm not so sure. Wren had met her roommate weeks ago. She, emphasis on the she (Courtney), was from Omaha too, not far away from where we live and Wren had met up with her for coffee numerous times. They'd become fast friends and even gone shopping for their room together but here was me with a guy for a roommate (whose girlfriend seemed like the sort of person I'd actively avoid).

"This is really nice." Dad says looking around the room and setting boxes down on the mattress beside me.

"It looks like a hospital room without the TV." I state blankly, he looks at me like I'm crazy.

"You've got a great view of campus." He tries with the cheery voice again.

Wren wanders over to the window, seeming awestruck, moving to college was Wren's dream, she couldn't wait for all this college stuff to start, me on the other hand had been dreading it and now I am here feel even worse than I did beforehand. "This view is great! My room faces a parking lot."

"How do you know?" I ask, tiredly.

"Google Earth, duh." She rolls her eyes at me but I know it's in an affectionate way and it only makes my desire to cry stronger.

"It's gonna be okay, you know?" Dad says, putting his arm around my shoulders.

I nod, I have to give this a chance, there is no way Dad or Wren are going to let me leave college right now, I'll give it a week or two and then go home. "I know." I can't let Dad know how much this is making me panic, it will only make him worse.

"Next stop, Schramm Hall. Then pizza buffet. Third stop will then be my sad and empty nest." He sounds sad, even though he's trying not to let on, I hope I don't sound that obvious.

"Sorry Dad, no pizza, I have plans with Courtney." I look at her blankly, I can't believe she is doing this to Dad, to me for some girl she doesn't even know. "Cath should come with me and Courtney too." Dad smiles.

"That sounds like a great idea, you girls go."

"No, I want pizza Dad." Dad might lose touch of reality without us there to pick up on the signs, he's never lived without someone else. First with Laura (our so-called Mother) and then we would always pick up on the signs, at least we did after he had the meltdown just after Laura left and Grandma came to stay for a while. I want pizza with him at least it might make the leaving a little easier. It's like Wren can't even see that it might be hard on him, or on me; she's so absorbed in her own bubble of how great starting college is.

"You should go with Wren." Dad says sounding guilty for taking me away from some party I have no intention of going to. I don't want anything to do with frat boys or parties. Wren knows how much I hate parties and her she is trying to make me go to one, it only works towards making my first day of college the worst day of my life.

"I want pizza today Dad. I have plenty of time to go to parties, I choose pizza with my Dad today." Wren rolls her eyes again, these feel a lot more malicious than the earlier ones did and I feel that the space between us is larger than it has ever been before.

"All right, first stop Schramm halls. Lets go." He opens to door to allow us to go first, Wren leaves the room without another word but I stay rooted to the spot. "Come on, Cath."

"You can come back for me when you've dropped her off, I'm going to unpack." Wren didn't come back to say bye. Dad nods and then leaves to letting the door shut.

It did feel good to unpack, to put sheets on the bed and set up my new desk, to organise the chaos that had been in the boxes. To set the ridiculously expensive text books on her shelves that sit over her small desk, if she needed a reason to stay it'd be how much she'd spent on textbooks. When Dad comes back we walk to Valentino's. Everyone around us is my age, white and blonde. The thoughts are jumbled in my head but as we sit in down in the student packed pizza place one thought stands out. "It's like a story, science fiction, no kids, nobody over thirty, no old people. This is just wrong."

Dad chuckles, looking himself up and down and then glancing around at the other parents in the room who've come to eat with their kids too. "What am I then? I'm forty-one, the guys at work my age are just starting to have kids and mine are off to college." He starts off laughing but becomes solemn by the end of his point. "You need to give your sister less of a hard time. She didn't want to hurt you, she just wants to meet new people."

I take a piece of pizza (bacon-cheeseburger pizza – our favourite) and spit it out. "Geez!" I gasp. Dad looks up shocked at the outburst, as do some of the people who sit around us. "Pickle." I explain "surprised me is all." He nods.

"You two seem like you're fighting." He says, sounding worried and phrasing the statement rather like a question. I shrug, me and Wren weren't talking enough to be considered fighting, giving each other the silent treatment maybe, but not fighting. I tap out my thoughts onto the table.

"We're not fighting, we just disagree on some things. Wren just wants pure independence." I mutter. I notice then that he's starting to tap the table to, it's not an instinctual means of copying my actions it means he's running low. "Tired?" I ask. He looks up from his gaze on his fingers and looks sheepish.

"It's been a long day. A big day. Both of you, both my babies in the same day. I've still not got my head around the fact that you aren't coming home with me." If I ever had an opportunity to just return home, it would be now but I'd feel like I was taking advantage of Dad's vulnerabilities.

"Don't get too comfortable alone in that house, not sure I'll stick out the first semester." I am not kidding but he laughs thinking I'm joking and I let him think that.

"I will be fine, Cath. You know?" he asks quietly, yawning once he's finished speaking. I look at him, trying to assess if he's got it together; he's tired, he's a little twitchy and he's definitely fond of his tapping at the moment but he is holding it together.

"I wish you'd get a dog." I mutter under my breath, knowing I'll never convince him.

"I wouldn't remember to feed it." He answers solemnly and we both know it's true.

"We should get it trained so it feeds you." I tease.

When I return to my room, my roommate and his girlfriend are still gone. I take the opportunity to unpack some more stuff, from the chaotic boxes, the sooner they're out of the way the better. Picture and personal stuff clutter my desk while she arranges them onto the corkboard behind her desk – me and Wren, me and Abel, me and Dad and finally Simon Snow (Simon and Baz) posters that were hand drawn and hand painted just for me. I'd have to leave the ones that wouldn't fit on the corkboard because I am determined not to announce my geekish-ness to the whole world, especially not my roommate whose side of the room looked sophisticated and plain. My side of the room didn't need to look like a ten year olds room.


	2. Chapter 2

In stories waking up in new places is disorientating, people forget where they are, they're still lost in their dreams and reality is far from clear in the moments after waking. I always remember where I fall asleep, I remember falling asleep in my room, in my dorm, in a place that I'm not used to. I'm in a place that I don't want to be and where I feel pretty uncomfortable. Whoever invited co-ed dorm rooms was surely a psychopath? What is disorientating is waking up to a room without Wren, a room with a boy I don't know.

The alarm from me phone drones on, I grab my phone knowing if it goes on much longer it will wake the sleeping boy next to me and that will lead to more awkwardness and at this hour in the morning I can't manage to deal with unnecessary awkwardness.

The phone going off reminds me off all the things I didn't do last night, the things that went forgotten as I'd crawled into bed and let sleep take me away from my unease – I hadn't text Abel, but there again Wren thinks he's a waste of time (he's never really been my boyfriend – or something along them lines), I never checked my FanFixx account either.

Clicking the button for new message, I try to compose the message in my head before typing it onto the screen. "First Day. More later. X" the words are simple and convey nothing.

The boy on the other side of the room stirs, I grab some clothes from the closet and grab my keys heading to the bathrooms to get changed. He's gone by the time I get back, hopefully that means he won't be spending a lot of time in the room, maybe he'll spend most of his time at his girlfriends. Some small part of me almost wished he'd stay, it was time for breakfast and in new situations the rules that are the hardest are the ones that aren't discussed, the ones I'm worried about most being the rules that function in the dining room, that no-one will tell you about because they are obvious to most people but to me, just make me panic and send me to the verge of an anxiety attack. I brought food with me and it'll last me for a few weeks if I pace myself and I don't plan to stay any longer than that so there shouldn't be a problem anyway. I have protein bars and giant jars of peanut butter and they'd last me till October for certain if I paced myself.

I chew the carob-oat bar as I wait for my laptop to load up, it is about time that I check my FanFixx account, I was due to post another chapter of Carry On yesterday but that went out the window with the whole moving situation. I don't have time to write anything substantial now, it's almost time for class, so I write a status updating my fans and followers. "First day of school. Family departure. Finishing moving in. Sorry for yesterday, potentially sorry for today, not sure what will happen and if I'll get time to write so we are looking at Tuesday. I have something especially wicked planned. Peace out, Magicath."


	3. Chapter 3

Going to class doesn't feel real, I don't think it's clicked yet that I'm here. It feels like I'm just pretending to be a college student. The buildings that make up campus are exactly what you'd expect from a coming-of-age movie. The brick buildings, and filled with kids with backpacks, over-excited since it's the first day. I can't help but shift my backpack, feeling like I'm trying too hard to fit in, considering I don't really want to be here.

I make it to American History ten minutes early, not early enough to make it to a back space table. It was about the only thing that would make my anxiety about being here with no-one familiar. I take a deep breath and sit down further forward and look around awkwardly and nervous. Although everyone else had the same nervous and awkward look on their faces too, they'd spent far too much time deciding what to wear and it was oozing off them. I had most certainly not put that much effort into my outfit, something that I'd be comfortable in – jeans, Simon t-shirt, green cardigan and sneakers.

I close my eyes feeling as though the room is closing in, the strength of the deodorant choking me and the creaking desks vibrating through my own and through my body. If I'd had slightly less pride, I'd have taken the American History class that Wren was taking but after our arguments about not living together it didn't feel right. American History is one of the only electives that we could take together but it hadn't happened. Wren is studying marketing and I'm studying English. Wren wanted a job in advertising like Dad.

My English course is Intro to Fiction Writing (a junior-level course) and I'd finished reading all three of her books over the summer – not typically my type of book (decline and desolation in rural America). Wren had disapproved of the reading choice, she was shocked about me reading something that doesn't have a dragon or an elf. They don't include Baz or Simon and I'd missed them, the books had been too realistic.

The door slamming removes me from my flashbacks to the summer and I realise how the class has slowly been filling but the lecturer still hasn't made it to the class. I dig my phone out of my back. Wren and I, may not being on the best of terms but it's still her I want to talk to.

"You up?" I send. I look out the window, not all that interested by anything or anyone in the classroom and see Levi. He catches my eye and waves and I wave back feeling extremely awkward. A few seconds later my phone chimes.

"Isn't that my line." I can almost imagine her laughing as she sends the text but I know she is still annoyed with me so I know she won't be laughing as she sends the text.

"Went to bed at 10. Was too tired to write. Too tired." I type back.

"Neglecting your fans already. Great start." I smile.

"Always so jealous of my fans." I type again. She doesn't reply to the text but it doesn't matter because a middle aged Indian man in a reassuring tweed jacket walks into the lecture hall. I turn down my phone and put it back in my bag.


	4. Chapter 4

My stomach rumbles as I reach the dorm, at the rate I'm going I'm not going to have protein bars for more than a week. Levi is leaning on the wall outside the room, is he waiting for me? Did he forget his keys or something? I do hope this isn't going to be a regular occurrence.

"Cather!" he says with a smile, he starts to stand up properly as soon as I am close enough. It's only now that I notice his arms and legs were too long for his body. I feel a smile tug at the side of my lips but it doesn't form on my face completely unlike his wide grin that never seems to leave his face.

"It's Cath." I state once I'm close enough for an actual conversation to seem normal.

"I don't think so, are you sure? Cather suits you. I really like Cather."

"I'm sure." I state dryly. "I've had enough time to think about it, that I'm sure about." I know I should probably try to act more warmly towards my roommate but what would be the point, after all I have no intention of staying here longer than I need to. "Forget your key?" I grasp the key in my hand but don't open the door, he looks at the door expectantly. He makes me feel 'new', I don't know any other way to explain it and at the moment new is just something that I don't want to deal with. I want to curl up in bed with my laptop and indulge in Simon and Baz. Yet here I stand with this boy who I hardly know, hardly want to know and I'm stuck with no way to remove myself or him from the situation.

"Nah, just don't like spending time alone. I mean the room is far too quiet alone, at least the corridor is a little more interesting." I have to blink a few times to understand what he's said, he's only coming into the room because I'm back. Does that mean he thinks I'm going to interact with him? I like my own little universe with Simon and Baz, I don't need another guy who's only going to be part of my life for a few weeks (if that).

"Do they do this a lot?" I ask, it's been praying on my mind since I moved in. A guy-girl co-ed dorm is so strange and it's the only topic of conversation I can think of, other than Simon-Baz. Simon-Baz may come on a little too strong and it's embarrassing anyway.

"This?" he asks quizzically. I open the door and dump my bags on my bed, wanting to quickly close the door behind me and I could but he could still come in, he's already said he has keys.

"Guy-girl rooms?"

"Not common, but not unheard of. It doesn't bother you does it?" he's too cheerful, too upbeat; he makes everything seem like it's okay when I know that living with a guy like this is something I definitely didn't want to do, I don't want to do.

"It's fine." I mutter quietly, grabbing my laptop and a protein bar and crawling into the corner of my bed, as far from his side of the room as I can get.

He sits down on his bed, grabbing his laptop too but within a second his phone is chiming with a text and he's getting up putting his shoes back on and grabbing a jacket. "I'm head out to meet Reagan. See ya, later." I nod in response not even having time to form two syllables before he's out the door and gone.


End file.
